Home Office Deductions for W2 Married

Forum|Forum|2 years ago
April 8, 2023
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Husband and I both are W2 regular employees for different companies. We both have worked from home since before Covid (same situation at our jobs...no office space at work, so our bosses told us to work from home permanently).

We are NOT doing the standard deduction. I thought home offices are no longer deductible. But under Employment Expenses, Job Related Expenses, Turbo Tax is still asking us for the "old" information that I thought was no longer deductible...such as square footage of the home office, how much in utilities, etc.

It also asks for mortgage interest and property taxes paid (which is very confusing, because we had already entered that in the Your Home section). It's also very confusing because this section has an area for both my husband's biz expenses/home office and my own. So under his home office, it asks for utilities for the entire house. And then under mine, it asks the same question. So if our utilities are $2,000 per year for the entire house, do I enter $1,000 on my home office and $1,000 on his?

Thanks for any help with this. Very confused

Best answer by AnnetteB6

You are correct, home office expenses for W-2 employees is not deductible on your Federal return (due to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act passed in 2017). You are still allowed to enter the information as part of your Federal return in case your state did not conform to the TCJA with regard to employee business expenses.

When entering the information for the home offices, as long as they are using a different designated space, then you would enter the total utilities amount under each home office entry. The percentage of the total utilities applicable to each home office will be calculated based on the relative size of each office.

AnnetteB6Answer

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tphtphAuthor

Employee

Thank you so much. On top, where the refund is in green...I notice that the federal return is not affected when I change numbers in the utilities, etc. But the state refund in green (California) goes up when I enter the home office expenses. I assume California still allows some deductions but the federal does not? Thanks again

SharonD007

Yes, you are correct. CA does not conform to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. Unreimbursed employee expenses are deductible on your CA tax return if your Misc. expenses are greater than 2% of your federal adjusted gross income.

For additional information, please review the TurboTax Help article Can employees deduct any job-related expenses?

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